Mom charged in daughter's kidnapping

The mother of a 3-year-old Plano girl was charged with abducting the girl from the southwest suburb.

The Amber Alert had been issued by Illinois State Police in the alleged abduction of the girl by her mother, Theresa Harskey, 40. The two were found about 5:30 a.m. in a first-floor apartment in the 300 block of South Whipple Street on Chicago's West Side, where they had spent the night. Police said a female tenant of the apartment called police after she saw a WGN-Ch. 9 report on the Amber Alert.

Harskey, who was prohibited from unsupervised visitation with her daughter, Rheanoon, took a vehicle rom the girl's father along with $3000, and other identification cards and fled with the child late Wednesday night.

Harskey and her daughter had been brought to the apartment around midnight by a man who told the woman that the shelters were closed for the night and asked if they could spend the night there, the woman told police.

"When she called 911, apparently she was very hush-hush and told police to come right away," said Officer Brian Conslick, who came to the apartment with Sgt. Louis Mahaffey and Officer Zuzanna Matysiak. "She probably was afraid the woman (Harskey) was on to her."

Conslick said he and fellow officers were invited into the apartment, where they found Harskey awake in the back. Rheannon was sleeping on a bed, wearing diapers and a pink top, Mahaffey said.

"She was the picture of health, a little cranky because we woke her up," he said.

Harskey was being held this morning at the Harrison District headquarters, 3151 W. Harrison St., awaiting the arrival of Plano police, and Rheannon was there, too, eating a fruit cup and oatmeal.

Harskey allegedly took her daughter from the family home after her father, Terrence Jerman, went to the hospital for "a medical issue," Plano Police Lt. John Whowell told WGN-Ch. 9.

Whowell said an order of protection had been issued against the mother, stipulating that she could not be with her daughter unless the father was present. Despite that order, the couple still lived together and the father left the girl with her mother when he went to the hospital, Whowell said.

He said Theresa Harskey "has a history of drug and child abuse," but could not provide further details.